


Pieces

by stumblinginthestars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Comfort, Destiel - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3393494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stumblinginthestars/pseuds/stumblinginthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean feels as empty as ever; the beating of his paper heart echoing around in his glass shell. The bedroom door creaks open slightly, letting a sliver of light in the room. Dean closes his eyes against the light that seems to slice into his skull as someone slips into his room and eases the door shut behind them.<br/>“Go away, Sam.” Dean says, voice void of emotion.<br/>“Dean…” the voice is like gravel and honey and a cloudy sky over tumultuous seas. It’s not Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces

 

                Exhausted is a weak word for what he is feeling right now. He feels hollow. A glass doll dressed in a ratty outfit of bravado that’s fooling no one. He collapses on his bed, not having the energy or motivation to take off his boots or his three layers of clothes or wash the blood from his face. Dean curls in on himself, trying to shut out Cain’s voice in his head. _Have you ever mused upon the fact that you’re living my life in reverse?_ Shut up. _First you’d kill Crowley... You’d have your reason. You’d get it done._ Shut up. _And then you’d kill the angel._ Please, shut up. _Castiel… Now that one. That I suspect would hurt something awful._ Dean curls in on himself tighter, the Mark throbbing as he wraps his hands around himself and struggles to hold his broken body together. _And then would come the murder you’d never survive…_ No, no, no. _Your brother._ No. _Sam_.

                Dean shatters like a porcelain doll smashed on cold cement. Tears pool in his eyes and he chokes on sobs that he won’t let pass his lips. The Mark scratches like a crawling centipede under his skin and he grips himself tighter, grasping at his body tightly. Gathering the broken pieces and shoving them into a pile and calling it fixed. He falls apart quietly, body convulsing with each muted sob. Footsteps are in the hall and he knows it’s Sam and he stiffens as they pause outside his door. _Go away._ The footsteps trail off, leaving Dean to his dimly lit room to slowly be crushed by the voices being dredged up from the depths of his memories.

                _The river ends at the source._

                Dean squeezes his eyes shut tightly, ignoring the screams of his demons rattling around his brain. He wonders how long he has until he becomes a monster. How much time until the cancerous effect of the Mark spreads through his body again? How long until everything he is—was—is stripped away and he’s gone? He runs a hand over his face as a sob breaks out from his split lips. He lets himself break into fragments because he’s alone and he’s on death row like Tommy Tolliver. Life sentence. His wracking sobs slow to quiet hiccups after a few seconds— _minutes?_ —which slow further to drooping eyes and a feeling reminiscent of jet lag and desolation. And then the pain from being brutally beaten surfaces. No coming back. The claws of all-too familiar nightmares wrap themselves around Dean and drag him under before he can muse on that too much.

                Dean wakes up, rubbing his bleary eyes and frowning at the pounding in his skull behind them. Migraine. Great. He lays on his side with a sigh; this is why he doesn’t allow himself to cry. He gets migraines. He presses the heels of his hands against his temples as he rolls onto his back, pressing hard to try to squeeze out the pressure and the voices of Cain and Crowley and Abaddon and Metatron. Failing to relieve himself of the pain, he wraps his arms back around his midsection like a large, makeshift butterfly bandage. He stares up at the ceiling blankly. Milliseconds, seconds, minutes, maybe even hours pass by slowly and the ceiling never changes. And Dean feels as empty as ever; the beating of his paper heart echoing around in his glass shell. Dean’s door creaks open slightly, letting a sliver of light in the room. Dean closes his eyes against the light that seems to slice into his skull as someone slips into his room and eases the door shut behind them.

                “Go away, Sam.” Dean says, voice void of emotion.

                “Dean…” the voice is like gravel and honey and a cloudy sky over tumultuous seas. It’s not Sam.

                “Cas, I don’t… I can’t,” Dean’s voice is blank as he tries to express what he’s feeling. Or better yet, what he’s not feeling. Because is numbness really an emotion? He’s staring at the ceiling once more as his arms tighten in their hold.

                “Dean… It’s been two days.” Castiel’s voice is laced with worry and even though he is still staring at the ceiling, Dean knows that the angel’s eyebrows are furrowed in that all-too-familiar way.

                Dean doesn’t answer.

                “Are you trying to sleep?” Castiel’s voice even _sounds_ like a damn head-tilt is involved.

                “Yes.”

                “You’re still wearing your clothing.”

                Dean presses his lips together in a tight line. He doesn’t want to tell Cas that he’s been too broken to take his damn boots off. That he doesn’t see the point. _Why don’t you just do it now? Put me out of my misery? Save yourself and Sam the trouble!?_ He wants to scream. But he stares at the ceiling, his face neutral as his brain screams for a quick death and for Castiel to stop caring so much.

                The bed dips at the foot  near Dean’s feet underneath Castiel’s weight. The mattress shifts as Cas moves about for a few seconds before he gets comfortable.  Dean keeps his eyes on the ceiling until he feels his right foot being grabbed and lifted off the bed. He looks down as Castiel is placing his foot in his lap; the angel is sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed. “What are…?” Dean begins, but stops as Castiel begins unlacing his boot with dexterous fingers. With a gentle tug, Castiel removes the heavy boot, letting it fall to the floor beside the bed. He replaces the right foot with the left, unlacing it and removing it from Dean’s foot. Dean swallows a small lump in his throat and looks at the ceiling again. White. All white save for a few tan flecks here and there.

                Castiel is moving again and his voice ushers softly, “Sit up, Dean.”

                Dean blinks once. He feels like his bones are made of lead and his skin of tissue paper. “I… I can’t…” he chokes out.

                Castiel is off the bed and Dean closes his eyes, waiting for the sound of his door. Waiting for Castiel to leave him. Instead, he hears Castiel saying, “Let me help you, then.”

                An arm slips under Dean’s shoulder blades, lifting his upper half from the bed gingerly and effortlessly. Dean opens his eyes, but doesn’t look at Castiel. Doesn’t watch as the angel holds him up with one arm while pulling his over shirts off one arm at a time before dragging them out from under his hold of Dean’s back. Doesn’t watch Castiel drop the bloodied garments to the floor beside his shoes. Doesn’t watch Castiel slowly lays him back on the mattress. He looks at the ceiling again.

                Castiel slips his hand from underneath Dean’s back and it’s suddenly very cold in the room. And Dean feels like a sinking ship without the angel’s caring touch, but he knows he doesn’t deserve this. And then the lump in his throat grows until a strangled, destroyed noise forces its way between his lips, spilling into the silence. His tears follow, streaming from his eyes and he knows he’s going to worsen his headache, but he can’t stop. His arms twist around himself automatically, fingers digging into his sides. Castiel is silent and Dean doesn’t know whether or not he’s even still in the room until he feels his pants being unbuttoned and unzipped. Castiel eases the stiff, stained jeans off to reveal Dean’s bruised legs. There’s a dull ‘thud’ as the jeans are discarded on the floor as well.  

                And it feels like days, weeks, months pass. And then, someone is shushing him. “I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel’s voice is soft as his hand comes to touch Dean’s jaw lightly with his fingertips. The warm, pure  feeling that passes over Dean’s face is the familiar feeling of being healed. Of Castiel wasting his dwindling grace on minor cuts and fractures.

                “Stop, Cas,” Dean says, breaking his gaze from the ceiling to look at the man at his bedside. “Your grace… You can’t…”

                Castiel doesn’t stop and Dean feels his split lip coming together and the bones beneath his skin being formed back together and the scrapes on his knuckles healing. Before the bruises fade, Castiel slumps slightly, hands gripping the edge of the mattress as he breathes deeply. And Dean aches at the sight and heaves his heavy arm and wraps his hand around Castiel’s. Castiel lifts his hanging head and those blue eyes focus on Dean fully. Dean tries to smile, but his lips just won’t curl that way right now.

                “I-I’m sorry.” He rasps.

                And then Castiel is lying beside Dean and Dean is wrapped around Castiel like his life depends on it. And he doesn’t care what this looks like and he doesn’t care that he’s lying in boxer-briefs and a tee-shirt and he doesn’t care about stupid things he used to care about. He lets Castiel wrap his arms around him. He lets Castiel run his nimble fingers through his hair. He presses his cheek to Castiel’s chest and can faintly hear a heartbeat through the skin and shirt and tie. He wonders if that means Castiel is closer to humanity. Closer to dying.

                “I’m sorry, Cas. I’m sorry.” He keeps muttering. On a loop. Broken record. Broken, so broken.

                Castiel just responds by gripping him tighter, stroking his hair, and saying almost wistfully, “When I had my wings, I flew through the galaxies. I felt stardust and created constellations and destroyed planets with my hands. I was a leader of an army of angels and they followed my commands swiftly and with the power of ten billion nuclear bombs. I used to be a cosmic being and used to wonder why my Father wasted so much effort on things as small as humans. You were all so small and so flawed. I was intrigued.”

                Dean listens quietly, feeling as insignificant as a speck of dust in Castiel’s presence. He sometimes forgets that Cas was once _Castiel_ —leader of a legion, an angel, a celestial being made of stars and power and miracles.

                “Then, one day I was commanded to go into the pits of Hell and rescue one soul. Of a man.” Castiel continues, moving so he is sitting against the headboard. Dean lies beside him and watches Castiel as he continues speaking. “And I was a good soldier. I thought the mission for one soul was extreme, but I never questioned orders. So, I dove into hell to find the soul of The Righteous Man. And I fought for your soul, Dean. I flew to you as fast as I could and battled platoons of demons until I finally extracted you. And then, you were just as flawed as all the other humans I had watched over the millennia of my life.”

                Dean closes his eyes ashamedly, trying to pull away from Castiel. Distance himself from the caring touches he doesn’t deserve. From the angel who doesn’t deserve to be dragged down by a man with the stamp of destruction on his arm and the curse of failure on his heart.

                But Castiel looks at Dean and reaches down to hold Dean’s right hand in both of his own. “But you taught me so much, Dean. You helped me learn about freedom and hope and fighting for what’s right. After touching your soul and growing to know you… You are not your failures. You are not the mistakes you make or the scars on your skin. You are not who others define you as. And you are not what you define yourself as.” He looks into Dean’s eyes and Dean knows Castiel can read him like a book. “You are the greatest miracle in the world. You are stardust and courage and love. You are too selfless and too reckless and too wonderful.”

                Castiel holds Dean’s hand in one of his own, using the other to caress Dean’s bruised face tenderly and Dean knows Castiel wishes he had healed the bruises as well, but he’s glad he didn’t waste any more grace on him. Dean leans into the touch, eyes flitting shut.

                “You are beautiful, Dean Winchester.” Castiel says, voice full of conviction and Dean feels himself drifting off, the comfort of sleep spreading over him like a warm blanket. “You are my best friend and I am always here for you.”

                Dean is barely clinging to awareness, the feeling of Castiel’s body so close and their hands intertwined and the silky touches to his face piecing him back together. And as he finally slips into unconsciousness, Dean thinks he hears Castiel whisper, “And… I love you.”


End file.
